I earned my PhD in political science  from Northwestern University in June 2016. I succesfully defended my dissertation entitled "When the State Minds the Gap: The Politics of Subnational Inequality in Social Development" before a committee composed by James Mahoney, Ana Arjona and Edward Gibson. 

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My dissertation asks about subnational disparities in social development. In concrete, I answer why are some countries more succesful than others at reducing the subnational inequality in education and health. I suggest that a combination of empowered technocrats, weakened subnational elites, and resources lead to equalization accross territory. I develop and test this theory using qualitative methods, although I also employ econometrics for some parts of the argument. In concrete, I mix controlled comparisons with process-tracing of health and education in Colombia and Peru. 


Before starting my PhD, I did research on governance, clientelism, politics of transport infrastructure and sexual violence in wartime. I graduated from Universidad de los Andes in 2006 and worked for Cinep (Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular) for 5 years.